


Write that last chapter with me

by Welsper



Category: Marvel 616, Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Romance, Self-Sacrifice, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21586957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welsper/pseuds/Welsper
Summary: There must always be a future.David will make sure of that, no matter the cost.But Tommy will not let him go so easily.
Relationships: David Alleyne/Tommy Shepherd
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	Write that last chapter with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowshus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/gifts).



“Hey there, noodles-and-a-coffee guy.”

David looked up from his phone at that familiar voice calling him out. He was greeted with the grinning face of Tommy Shepherd who waved at him before plopping himself down in the seat opposite of David. Ever familiar, although they had never actually known each other for long, Tommy helped himself to some of David’s pancakes. That was the kind of man Tommy was, taking it all as it came along, dashing in and out of other people’s lives as he pleased. David wondered how long it would last this time.

“What have you been up to? Any more mutant uprisings? Universal realingments gone wrong? Got a new job? Don’t tell me you’re back at the call center.” Tommy made a face and shuddered. “You were so _wasted_ there,” Tommy declared while munching on his own pancakes now the waitress had set before him. David didn’t really spend his breakfasts with anyone these days and he kind of missed it, those bright and solemn mornings of laughter and tears while drifting in the multiverse, chasing after some thing David still didn’t really understand and running from Mother.

They had drifted apart soon, from each other and their makeshift Avengers group, occasionally meeting up to defeat this or that little or big threat. He hadn’t even seen America since graduating from Sotomayor. She was probably still out there, beating up people. If only every problem was solved as easily as kicking it in the face. David had never been very good at that.

“No, nothing that dreadful. Just… doing some jobs here and there,” David said with a shrug. “And you? Still a part-time hero?”

“When I feel like it.”

Tommy flashed him a grin smeared with blueberries and David was thankful his complexion did wonders hiding the blush that brought on. It had been a long while ago, but he had never forgotten the taste of those lips, even if it had been mere seconds. One moment, he had been kissing that thing, and the next his lips were pressing against Tommy’s. They had been surprisingly soft, for such a rough man. God, David wished he could forget them. But forgetting wasn’t something David was particularly good at. He shook his head to Tommy furrowing his brows at him.

_ Denial. _

“The team got back together, I guess,” Tommy said, spinning a fork in his fingers so fast David could not follow the movements any longer, it was all a blur. Like Tommy and David wondered when he was going to dance out of his life again. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like if they were more than noodles-and-a-coffee friends.

“Even I can’t outrun age, David. Sometimes I wonder if there’s more out there than fighting and running, you know,” Tommy said and looked him right in the eyes. They were piercing, seas of green surrounded by pale skin and paler hair and David could drown in them. There was joy in them now, and excitement and a look to the future, the way it should be. In his nightmares, David could still see the absolute terror in them, the fear and the helplessness and panic when that thing had come after Tommy. So fast and so slow and so inevitable that even Speed could not outrun it. David shuddered at the memory.

“You alright?” Tommy asked with a frown and David quickly nodded.

“Are you getting sappy with me, Tommy?” David asked with a grin and Tommy grinned back and shrugged.

“It’s just… my brother’s getting married soon. They’re talking about kids! I haven’t even managed to have a relationship that lasted past a year.”

“You’re a speedster, Tommy. You move on, it’s what you do,” David said, suddenly very interested in stirring his black coffee.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to move on all the time! Maybe I want to settle down and build a damn life.”

David looked up and Tommy was still staring at him. And what was that in his eyes? David knew a lot, maybe too much. But something in him didn’t need those past skills to know what that look might mean. It was how he looked at Tommy too.

“Yeah, right,” David said, and he really hoped Tommy hadn’t suddenly developed super-hearing as well lest he would know how hard his heart was beating in his chest.

“I’m serious, man.”

“What are you asking?” David said carefully, feeling like the most stupid man on this Earth and all other Earths for daring to get his hopes up. Tommy had run right off after their kiss that hadn’t even been a real kiss and since then they had mentioned it precisely zero times. Tommy was merely looking for a little direction from someone he thought would know about things like that, that was all.

“I don’t even know,” Tommy said and he sounded frustrated. He was rubbing the back of his neck and David thought he looked so cute like that. Tommy looked cute doing anything, really. Tommy would look cute in his arms. In his bed. In _their_ bed, their apartment, their life together.

Well. No time like the present.

“How about an upgrade? I’m thinking dinner-and-wine.”

“Still friends?” Tommy added and he sounded as uncertain as David felt.

“For now?” David offered with a little smile. Tommy smiled back and all those stupid romance novels David knew by knowing too much about too many people were still stupid but also right. It felt like a swarm of Monarch butterflies was making their way across the ocean in his stomach.

* * *

“What is that?” Kate asked, pointing straight at a crack right in the middle of the air. America’s eyes widened and she jumped in front of her, holding out her arm. Kate could have protested, but she never did.

“I saw this before. Back in the Utopian Parallel, right before it all went to...” America said and her eyes were wide and honestly, Tommy didn’t really want to know what scared someone like her.

“Is it time for Demiurge stuff then?” Tommy asked and there was a strange feeling in his gut, one he couldn’t quite place. Like he should reach out and… Images flashed through his mind, of an endless void and a massive figure in front of him and there was a man by his side and he kind of looked like Billy, but it wasn’t him. Older. Different. _Before._

He leaned into David’s hand on his shoulder, grounding him in the here and now. The here and now that was falling apart around them.

“Not quite yet, Master Sheperd,” Loki said as he appeared behind them and elegantly dodged one of America’s fists she sent towards his face by way of greeting.

“That is far, far in the future.”

“I’m training with Dr. Strange now,” Billy offered. “He’s a better teacher than you, by the way.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt. I never was the nourishing type.”

“He doesn’t try to steal my powers.”

“I was trying to help!”

“Well, help with _that_ ,” Kate said, still pointing at the fissure.

“Things must come to pass in the future. And for that to happen, other… things must come to be,” Loki said and looked at David.

“More future,” David said weakly and Loki nodded. He almost looked sad.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Tommy asked and there was a panic in him, a dread he couldn’t shake. “David?”

“This much I can do,” Loki said and reached out. “Help me with that,” he said to Billy and together they wove their spells, forcing the fissure closed.

“They will keep appearing. They will get worse. And eventually, they will not only tear this world apart, but all worlds.”

“Then I -,” Billy started but Loki raised a hand.

“No, not you. Not now.” Loki turned to David. “You have some time yet.”

Say your goodbyes, he didn’t speak out loud.

They parted, confused and lost, with neither Loki nor David yet telling them the truth. And perhaps they still understood, their bonds giving them that much information.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Tommy demanded, back in David’s apartment. Even though more often than not, he was there too now. It felt a lot nicer coming here than to his own apartments or rooms, whatever he felt like renting before moving on sooner or later. Sooner, more often than not. But coming here, with the shelves full of books and their toothbrushes together in a cup on the sink counter and the smell of David’s favorite coffee? It felt like coming home. And Tommy couldn’t help but feel like his home was going to be taken from him.

“There’s no future without the past,” David started and swallowed. What was he supposed to say? _Hey, I have to become an eldritch abomination to lead your friends on a chase through nightmare dimensions so more powerful people can eventually fix the universe?_ It was certainly a mouthful. 

“Well. I’m the past. You’re the future.”

“To hell with that!” Tommy spun him around by the shoulders. “Weren’t you listening to me? I thought you were smart! When I said I wanted to build a future, it was _with_ you.”

“You’re more important than I am! It’s not only Billy. It is you too. Or… the you before you,” David started and it was frustrating, to try and explain something like this. This family was a mess. “William and Thomas, they were _both_ destined to change the fate of the universe. Maybe even destroy it. But it was going to happen either way. And maybe… it has to happen with you two too.”

“Well, I’m not Thomas, I’m me. And I’ve got no desire for something that big. I only want to be me,” Tommy said and reached out for David’s hand. “With you.”

David looked down at Tommy’s hand in his and squeezed gently before he pulled back, no matter how hard he wanted to keep holding on.

“I don’t think either of us can simply be himself any more,” David said quietly. Tic-tock.

“Before Wanda destroyed the Avengers. I know, I know,” Tommy says and for once there is no smirk on his face. “Billy used to tell me aaaaall about it. He never shuts up about any of it. And I…” Tommy rubbed his temples, a pained look on his face. “Sometimes I think I can remember it, that world and the one before and...”

Tommy made a sound like a whimper and pressed his hands to his head, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. There were tears in them when he opened them again and David could see fear.

“Forget Teddy not being real, are _Billy and I_ real?”

And without thinking, without caring whether this would ruin what they had, whether Tommy had meant for it to go this far, David reached out and cupped Tommy’s face with one hand. He leaned forward and saw Tommy’s eyes close as he pressed their lips together. His own breath hitched as his heart beat faster at the touch. It was everything he remembered it being and so much more. It had only been a fraction of a moment before, but this time Tommy did not draw back.

His kiss was needy and passionate and so full of want. David moaned into the kiss as Tommy drew him forward, his hands on his hips.

“This feels real,” David said as he rested his forehead against Tommy’s. “You feel real.”

“Make sure,” Tommy breathed and pulled David back onto the bed with him.

* * *

The multiverse exploded around them. Billy and Loki kept a shield around them as they floated in space, fracturing space, breaking and bending and shattering and folding in on itself. Pulled out and in through the cracks appearing everywhere around them.

“Is that what would happen if we hadn’t followed you back then?” David muttered to himself.

Tic-tock, tic-tock. Tic-tock, tic-tock.

Tic-tock.

Tic.

Tock.

David swallowed around the lump in his throat. There must be more future, it had told him. It had told  _ him _ .

“I’m sorry, Tommy,” he whispered and stepped forward, outside the barrier. It was now or never.

“Oh no. Oh no, you don’t!”

“It’s okay, Tommy,” David said and tried to will away the pain in his heart. The screaming, the yearning in him that told him to stop. The fear, the anger, the love. That wanted him to stay by Tommy’s side. “I’ve got no powers. I cannot bend reality I cannot battle cosmic entities or rewrite the laws governing time and space. But you and Billy can. And if by becoming him, I can help you do that, help you save the multiverse, then…”

“I don’t care about any of that!” Tommy reached out for him in an instant and David felt him pulling at his wrist, gripping it to tightly it would bruise. “I don’t care about rewriting anything! I don’t want to do anything with that! I want to be with you!”

David felt tears drip down his face when Tommy hugged him tightly from behind, and it took him everything to not hold him close. If he wavered now, if he looked back, he would doom them all.

“Please, David,” Tommy whispered against his neck. “Stay with me.”

“I wish I could.”

David didn’t dare look back, didn’t dare to look at Tommy’s tear-stained face and the pain in his eyes and the love he knew was there. All those feelings they might be too young to understand, and that they now would never get to properly experience. Hopefully, in some universe, they could. If David became the hare, then maybe other Davids could have their happy endings. Could fill their books of love with pancake breakfasts and dances and weddings and dying together of old age instead of becoming some fixed point in time.

David pried Tommy’s arms of him and stepped forward. Blue smoke rose from his skin.

“There has to be some other way,” Billy called out and he was crying too. He held Tommy close to himself and some point of him, some part of him that wasn’t him yet must understand that this was necessary. Tommy struggled in his grip, but his brother held him. “If you let me cast the spell again... like that night, I can do it now,” he stammered and that was how David knew this was no option. Neither he nor Tommy could do what they were meant to do. Not yet.

Tic-tock.

“You cannot do it. You’d sooner rip the universe apart rather than fix it,” Loki said. “It is now or never,” he said and David nodded.

“See you soon,” David whispered and then there was no more David.

They looked on together as knotted and wrong universal threads untangled and straightened and the wild waves of crashing dimensions calmed as David’s sacrifice echoed through the multiverse. It was beautiful, and terrifying and entirely beyond anyone’s understanding, as such things were. None of it mattered to Tommy. He hid his face in the crook of Billy’s neck, finding no comfort in the warm embrace of his brother. He felt like something had been ripped from him, like there was a hole in his chest where David belonged. David, who was now that  _ thing _ , that awful thing that had caught him long ago, in Tommy’s past and the Patrinot’s future, David’s future. Why did it always have to be like this? Why did everyone have to suffer? Why couldn’t there be a future where everyone could be happy? What good were Tommy’s powers when he couldn’t even protect the one he loved most?

“And so the future is secured,” Loki said and raised his hands. When he lowered them again, they were back in New York, trading the glittering cosmos for a dimly lit side-street.

“Not his,” Tommy muttered and Billy held him tighter. Tommy pushed off him, wiping over his eyes with the back of his hand.

“You know what, screw this.”

They all turned to face Tommy. He closed his eyes and tried to remember it, those strange threads of the universe. He tried to remember the presence of the Patrinot, of that thing who had once been David. He tried to remember David. He would need that to find him.

“Do not,” Loki said softly when he understood and reached out to him, resting a gloved hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “To play with such things is a dangerous endeavor.”

“Good. I like danger.”

“Time is a fickle thing,” Loki said as he conjured up a clock between gloved fingers. It spun faster and faster until the clock hands were a whir, out of control and snapped the entire thing in half. It faded into dust and Loki clenched his fist.

“It is so very tempting so meddle with it. And yet it is so easy to break, so easy to get wrong… your brother nearly doomed us all when he sought to fix things that happened and now you want to do the same? Even after David so nobly sacrificed himself to make sure the end did not happen?”

“If it was someone you loved, wouldn’t you do it too?” Tommy asked. A grin spread on Loki’s face. Oh, he’d certainly done worse than that. Would do so again. No question.

“Absolutely.”

Billy looked between the two of them and shrugged.

“Same.”

Teddy nodded along with him and clapped Tommy on the back so hard it nearly sent him doubling over. What an oaf.

“Go save your man.”

"Don't screw this up. You can't outrun my fist, chico," America threatened.

“Oh go on, then,” Kate said while rolling her eyes, “but if you screw the timeline entirely and doom us all to an untimely death, I _am_ haunting you.”

She boxed him in the shoulder, but she was barely hiding her smile. Ever so responsible, that Kate. Tommy blew her a kiss and laughed.

“How will you find him?” Billy asked and there was this worry in his voice, that worry Billy had for everyone and everything. And maybe Tommy was not such a good person that he wanted to protect the entire world, all the world, but he would protect them. He would find David again, in the past and his future, and he would do it without losing his friends.

“What you feel when you bend reality to your will...” Tommy started and looked down on his hands. Time to use this power to fix things instead of simply blowing them up. “We’re two halves, aren’t we? It’s time for me. And if he’s back there, so will I be.”

“Try not to break it all, Tommy,” Billy said and Tommy shot him a smile and they bumped fists.

“No worse than you, promise.”

Tommy pulled down his goggles.

“Be right back.”

And he ran. Faster and faster, faster than he ever had before. So fast time couldn’t hold him any more, so fast the worlds opened before him, dimensions and universes. There was nowhere his legs couldn’t take him. If Billy could reshape reality as he pleased, then Tommy could be fast enough reality couldn’t catch him.

He would find him, he would find David.

All these pocket and Mayfly dimensions and universes David had gone through to find Tommy, Tommy would go through and more. He wouldn’t let David end like this.

* * *

Tommy remembered the absolute dread he had first felt at meeting this thing. The despair, the terror, the sheer helplessness. He hadn’t been able to place it back then. He had forgotten it soon. But now he knew what had echoed back then to him.

The horrible, sinking feeling that this was David. He had understood all those months ago, and he hadn’t understood it at the same time. Because it was the him from the future, echoing all the way back.

“Damn, I look stupid when I cry,” Tommy said to himself as he watched that day in the warehouse, time flickering and bending around him like he owned it. Maybe he did. And who knew, maybe David was right, and whatever Billy and him had been supposed to be, back before Wanda had remade them would still be them in the future. He certainly felt like he could take on a god like that. Is that how Billy had felt, when they had defeated Mother? He hadn’t been around for that. Apparently it was very sparkly. America had cried into her drinks to him over it, the sap.

Well, this warehouse certainly wasn’t sparkly, even now. Kind of dusty and stuffy, like he remembered it being. Like all warehouse were. God, there sure were a lot of abandoned warehouses in their line of work, weren’t they? Tommy had enough of them.

“You cannot stop it here, you know,” a voice next to him said and Tommy nodded as he stood up again, reaching out for that next ripple of time and chasing the trail of the Patrinot wherever it was he would be going.

“I know that. Gotta get them all in position so my dear brother can do his thing, right? What are you doing here?”

“I am a god. To watch over the follies of mortals is what I do,” Loki said with a shrug.

“You sure you’re not just bored?”

“Perish the thought.”

“Feels like I could slip somewhere and never return any moment,” Tommy said. Who ever thought it had been a good idea to give him powers like these? Maybe he should have sat down with David before, properly listen to him. Maybe have him tell him about Quicksilver’s powers, if there was anything there that could help him.

And maybe David had told him before, actually? To be honest, Tommy drifted off a lot when David started talking with that calming voice of his. He couldn’t help it. He liked listening to him. He had him read out his too-smart books to Tommy before. David could read him anything, even the damn phone book. Did they still make phone books?

“Sometimes I wish my brother had left me there in that cell,” Tommy sighed. “Three warm meals and a nice cozy, cell… Not chasing around your boyfriend become eldritch abomination through time...”

“Brothers,” Loki scoffed. “How do you mortals say? Fuck them.”

Tommy guffawed as they kept jumping around in time.

“Is this the day?” Tommy asked, a while, or maybe a moment later. For snails, it would be a few minutes, at most. Their friends back then (in the future) were probably still dusting themselves off. Faint bass shook the ground and Tommy could see the bright lights and heard brighter laughter of the young heroes that helped defeat Mother partying like there was no tomorrow.

“Man, but that was a great party,” Tommy said and Loki nodded.

“Over there,” he said and Tommy followed his pointing finger to a hill not far from the thick of the party. His heart beat in time with the beat of the music and faster when he saw David sitting there. Along with that thing. The other David. The Patrinot. Its twitchy movements almost made it look like it was dancing, now that music was playing in the background. It turned Tommy’s stomach. He saw David lean in to kiss him and he knew this was the moment. He had a millisecond, no, even less.

“Good luck,” Loki said with a grin and waved and was gone. Tommy surged forward, faster and faster and he seized that one fraction of a moment, the one where the past and the Patrinot were separated, where it was still David in there, but right before he faded into that blue mist.

“Gotcha!” He shouted as he grabbed him by the shoulders and tumbled forward, backward in time. They were nowhere now. Nowhere and anywhere.

“There must always be more future,” it said, twitching its head. It almost looked like it was smiling under that mask.

“Yeah, and you’re not taking yours and mine. You can’t waltz into my life like that and then leave again. Not even for all the universes,” Tommy said and held Patrinot’s face in his hand.

“Come back to me.”

Tommy leaned forward.

“Come back with me.”

Their lips met.

“Not moving too fast now?” David asked as Tommy drew back and gasped out when he was hugged, no rather squeezed tightly.

“Oh, you have no idea how fast,” Tommy muttered against his neck and then kissed him again. “Half an hour at least,” he then said after thinking about it for a moment. David cocked his head to the side, a worry in his eyes.

“How long was it, really? How long were you looking for me? Asking from a snail perspective.”

Tommy shot him a tired smile.

“A while,” was all he said and David didn’t press further. He reached out and pulled Tommy close to him by the neck to press a kiss to forehead.

“Thank you,” he whispered and Tommy nodded. The sun was rising and that was their cue.

“Come on. I could do with some breakfast,” Tommy said and pulled David with him, back to where he had started.

“We’re back to being coffee guys?”

“Hell no,” Tommy said and squeezed David’s hand tightly. Their fingers entwined and honestly, that was the best feeling. Tommy never wanted to let go.

“Good,” David said as they stepped back into that alley. Their friends surrounded them and they laughed together as Teddy pulled them into one of those ribcrushing hugs he liked to give.

“Because,” David started as they wriggled out of it, “there was something I wanted to ask you, actually. I thought I’d never get the chance again, but...”

Tommy stared as David took a little box out of his back pocket. The group gasped collectively as he then got to one knee before Tommy and took his hand.

“Tommy, will you marry me?”

Even after all that running, Tommy’s knees hadn’t felt weak, but now his legs were about to give in as he saw that little ring in the box, cushioned by simple satin, waiting for his answer. And maybe they were too young for all of this, maybe they were too young to know better. But Tommy had nearly lost David today, and maybe they would lose each other again, sooner than later. That was the world they lived in, the world they fought in.

Tommy didn’t want to run this time. Not from him. He wanted to cherish the time they had together.

“I will,” he said quietly and he had to smile when he felt David’s hand shake slightly when he slipped the simple gold band on Tommy’s finger.

There were tears and laughter and relief when David toppled over with Tommy’s hug.

Being a hero was pretty sweet. It meant getting to save the world the ones you loved most lived in. Tommy was sure now he wouldn’t trade that in for anything, no matter what sorrows and hardship it would bring.

And after all, the hero always got the boy.

* * *

“Man, I always thought Billy would get married first.”

David grinned at him.

“Be real with me. Do I look like a tool?” Tommy asked and gesticulated towards himself.

“You look lovely,” David said with a warm smile and kissed him. He looked great in that tux of his, elegant and form-hugging and perfect and David could marry him every day. And there was the faintest of blushes on Tommy’s face and David knew many things, but nothing quite so lovely as this.

“Come on, showtime.”

“Yeah. Yeah, right,” Tommy said, speaking too fast and nearly tripped over his feet when he followed David outside. Petals were raining down on them from trees from all across the universe, planted to the left and right of the aisle they walked down together.

Everyone they knew were there, the young and not-so-young Avengers, the Skrulls and Kree Teddy had gotten to get along, mutants and super-soldiers and wizards, their friends and their family. Loki gave Tommy a thumbs-up from where he sat, dwarfed by his looming brother and Tommy waved back. America and Billy were already crying.

By the time it was time to put the rings on each other’s fingers, Tommy and David were too.

“I promise to love you and to protect you. To live and fight by your side, and to find you again should you be torn from my side,” David said and he would. No matter how often. No matter how hard it had been, all those months ago.

“I promise to love you and to protect you. To live and fight by your side, no matter what and who will try to keep us apart,” Tommy said and no matter how often he would have to turn back the clock, he would. No one would take David from him again, not even David himself.

“Tommy Shepherd, do you take David Alleyne to be your husband, for better and for worse?”

“I do,” Tommy said and David held his breath for a moment when he felt the ring on his finger. Made out of Asgardian gold and enchanted with protection spells by both Billy and Wanda, they were as strange and beautiful and eternal as their bond.

“David Alleyne, do you take Tommy Shepherd to be your husband, for better and for worse?”

“I do,” David replied and he saw Tommy bit his lip slightly when he put his ring on. They smiled at each other, and for a moment there were only the two of them in the entire universe. Maybe all the universes.

Cheers erupted from the stands as their lips met in their first kiss as husbands. What a journey it had been, through time and dimensions and the healing of an entire multiverse. Maybe they should take a nice vacation. Hawaii was nice this time of the year.

Endless stars were glittering in the night sky as David and Tommy looked upon their mingling guests, simply resting for a moment. Tommy had his head on David’s shoulders and he rubbed his shoulder gently.

“I have no clue what I’m doing,” Tommy said suddenly and David had to laugh. And perhaps he should, after all he had learned. Maybe it should be his thing. But this? This was new, even to him.

“You know what?” David said and met Tommy’s eyes. There was a big grin on his face. “Neither do I.”

And he couldn’t wait to learn all about it.

  
  



End file.
